


Ryo's Nightmare

by JeMiChi



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Wonderswan Series
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Ryo has a lot of stress, he needs a hug, poor kid is lonely, that boy has PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29100312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeMiChi/pseuds/JeMiChi
Summary: This is actually a story I can't remember writing. I remember thinking about it and actually lamented being unable to recall what I had planned to include in the fic, but then I discovered it fully written on my Tumblr blog and the date shows it's been there since October 2016. I decided that now would be an excellent time to share the story with a wider audience because the Adventure remake is reminding me of these parallel worlds with its plot twists and cameos and I'm wondering if Ryo might actually show up as well.This story might be a bit dark and it's based on the Japanese Wonderswan games that tell his story as the kind of "behind the scenes hero" he is.Even if the fic isn't exactly new, I hope you like it! ^^
Kudos: 3





	Ryo's Nightmare

A monster, a two-headed giant abomination with two pairs of long arms grins and stomps the ground victoriously as it approaches the boy slowly.

“I told you that defeating me was impossible,” it growls with a voice that echoes from the mountains. There are no other sounds, the place is completely deserted.

The boy can only stare in shock as the monster walks closer and closer. He can tell the creature is laughing now, even though it sounds like roaring.  
There is no point in crying for help, his partner has been beaten and is lying somewhere out of sight unable to move. No one is going to save him this time.  
But suddenly he hears a voice from behind him.  
Wait, it can’t be!   
As he turns around, his friend is right there behind him, reaching out to grab his hand. But to the boy’s horror, an explosion happens just then, sending a shower of dark particles in the air and towards them.

“No! Not again!” the boy has no idea how this could be happening again now. It doesn’t make sense at all, but he knows that he wouldn’t let his friend get hurt this way ever again. Besides there’s no time to think. He jumps to push his friend out of the harm’s way and to shield him with his own body. Closing his eyes, he prepares for the painful impact that’s about to come.  
But it doesn’t. Instead, he hears that roaring laughter, but this time it’s coming from beneath him. Confused, the boy opens his eyes slowly. His friend has changed completely, instead of his usual plain clothes and combed hair, he’s wearing a cape and an armor, his eyes are covered with shaded goggles and his hair is spiky and messy. But the biggest change is his expression: the smirk that could only be described as evil.

“You have to defeat me first if you want to get out of here,” his friend states coldly and punches him in the chest without a warning. The impact knocks him over.

“No, no no no..!” he shakes his head desperately. This can’t be happening. He would never be able to hurt his friend, he couldn’t. But deep inside he knows that there’s no way out of it. His friend was no longer who he used to be. And it was all his fault.  
Tears begin to form in the boy’s eyes and he runs away, as fast as he can, but he can still hear that roaring laughter approaching from all sides. A gigantic hand with sharp claws slaps him off balance as if he was merely a fly. It wraps its long fingers around his body and lifts him up in the air just as easily. As he’s on the eye-level with the monster he knows it’s the end.  
Letting go of whatever remains of his dignity he cries out:

“Mommy!”

The sound of his own scream wakes Ryo. His cheeks are still wet from the tears, but it had been a dream. He’s had a lot of similar nightmares recently so sleeping has become hard.  
Someone grunts softly by his side, he can feel the warmth against his leg. Ryo isn’t alone, but he’s still so confused from the dream that it takes a moment before he recognizes who it is.  
In the darkness he lets his breathing calm down and looks at the small form of someone sleeping next to his leg. No, that someone wasn’t actually human. It had the smooth skin of a reptile and was currently snoring quite loudly. The creature was called Monodramon, a small purple dragon-like digimon. Now that Ryo thinks about it, he hasn’t seen a real human in a long time. Not that time mattered to him anymore. He couldn’t remember what day it was, not even the month. Actually, he wasn’t even sure what year it was this time. Not in this world, or in any other. For him time wasn’t exactly moving in order, he could very well be in the past, or even in the future. What was the present time anyway?  
Even if Ryo was able to return to “his own time” one day, it wouldn’t be his own anymore. Even though time as a concept had lost meaning to him, his body was still growing.  
Ryo is 12 years old now, at least he thinks he is. The stress from his long journey has taken its toll and he suffered from amnesia for a while. Now most of his memories have returned, along with those horrible nightmares and flashbacks that often turn him into a trembling, sobbing mess in the middle of the night without a warning. But a lot of his memories are still missing or in a confusing order, and every time he wakes up he needs a moment to recall where he is, and when, and who is his partner this time.  
The faces of Agumon, Veemon, Wormmon, and Guilmon keep appearing in his mind when he least expects it. None of them were ever actually his own digimon partners, they all had their human halves that they were destined to be with and only accompanied Ryo for the sake of fighting the enemies - for fighting Milleniummon.

“Milleniummon…”

Monodramon yawns lazily and turns around. Ryo realizes that he spoke the word out loud. Milleniummon was also a digimon, but unlike any other. He was that two-headed monster from Ryo’s nightmares and a beast with the same ability he has - the ability to travel through time and space. Ryo had had to travel from one world to another to fight him, to save those worlds from being destroyed, but he was never able to defeat the monster no matter what.  
He and his friend Ken had been able to seal Milleniummon into a crystal, but that hadn’t been enough to stop him.

The memory makes the boy frown sadly. It hadn’t ended well.  
The remains of Milleniummon’s physical body had exploded into dark spore. One of those cursed things had been on its way to his body, but Ken had pushed him out of its way and taken the hit himself. After that, Ken had never really recovered, his body grew weak and he got very ill.  
And Ryo never stopped blaming himself for that. Ken was about three years younger than Ryo, so the boy felt that he should have been the one protecting Ken, not the other way around. But there was nothing he could do about that now.

There had been times when Ryo would have wanted to turn to the chosen children for help, but what could they have done anyway..? And as time had gone by, they had kept demanding his help instead. There had been that stupid tournament too. The children, Gennai, all the digimon, they had tricked him into believing that his help was necessary when in reality they were just testing him, and training him for yet another battle against Milleniummon.

“Useless, they are all useless,” Ryo mutters angrily as he remembers the betrayal.

Now he was here as a result of all that, doomed to fight against his sworn enemy for all eternity for all he knew, to save a world that had forgotten he ever existed. Maybe it was for the best that everyone thought he had died. They wouldn’t be demanding for his help again.  
Ryo sighs heavily at the thought.  
And he wouldn’t be able to face Ken after making him go through those horrors. It was probably better that he’d never return to his own world after all. Who knows if that poor child was even alive. He had failed to protect the only one friend he had there, and all the others just wanted to use him.  
Ryo wraps his arms around his legs and buries his face on his knees feeling more and more lonely. The night was almost over.  
New challenges were waiting for him in the morning, he had no time to dwell on the past, but the nightmares made it hard to let go. And he still missed his parents, he missed them so much! Sometimes he wished he could have just remained amnesiac and started over in a new world without the burden of those memories.

Monodramon turns around again in his sleep and Ryo strokes his warm back gently. The digimon humms contently, it almost sounds like a cat’s purr, and the boy wraps his arms around the sleeping creature. He doesn’t know how long this digimon would stay with him, or if Monodramon already had a destined human partner somewhere waiting for him. None of the digimon had stayed by his side for long, but at least for the moment he could find comfort from his presence. 

**********

Growing up in the Digital World had it’s own challenges, but right now Ryo felt that it was better than the human world. Digimon were genuine at least, if they hated him they showed it clearly, but most of them treated him with kindness and curiosity. People on the other hand were hard to trust.  
Even so, Ryo realized that his clothes had started to become just a bit too small for him. He was hoping that one of these days he could visit a human world - just for a moment, so he’d be able to acquire some new clothes at least. And maybe eat some normal food for once. That would be nice.  
And maybe, just a little, he was still hoping to find someone trustworthy among the people after all. He missed having a family.  
All the human worlds he had visited had been slightly different, just like the digital worlds, whether they were different times or parallels of his own world, but a lot of things were similar too. He just hoped that the currency wouldn’t be a problem in the next world. With that thought on his mind Ryo fell asleep again, while hugging Monodramon against his chest. Soon it would be morning, but just for a few minutes there was peace in his world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! ^^


End file.
